Two from the road

If the latest iteration of the Incredible India is to be believed, yoga, ayurveda, a bit of wildlife and a bit of luxury are the primary reasons to visit in 2018. Now, I don’t envy anybody who designs these films because although India has a superabundance of history, landscapes and experiences, very few lend themselves to the sort of bland, cliché-ridden content that the powers that be have always assumed would draw hordes of wealthy visitors from the West. Also, since you can’t tap the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas ad infinitum and produce the same photogenic montages of sweeping eye candy drawn from its monuments and landscapes, you attempt to find new ways to sell the brand.

So, in this innings, you are being promised carefree sanitised experiences that might change your life. “Come to Spiritual India, do our yoga and become better at what you do (even if it is riding motor-bikes).” “Take our luxury trains, live in our palaces and experience what it feels to be pampered like a queen (even if you may have to be a queen to afford it).” “Watch endangered animals from the back of our elephants and get enlightened by their stories of survival while you’re taking their pictures (even if you can perhaps acquire the same knowledge from Animal Planet).” “Feel ‘reborn in this life’ by taking one of our Ayurveda packages (and get so fit, you will want to take a helping of our martial arts lessons too.)”

As I watched these capers unfold, I wondered who they were made for. The Yogi of the Racetrack is perhaps the most sensible because it appeals to a rapidly growing niche: young travellers taking a yoga break in places like Rishikesh and Mysore, some of whom may hire a Royal Enfield and ride to the Himalayas. The voiceover sounds stilted and inane but gets the point across. The others, populated with characters that resemble overjoyed mannequins, are so preposterous and dubious, I can’t imagine anybody packing their bags in a hurry. You don’t expect tourism ads to be gritty and realistic but the attempts at makebelieve here are so transparent, they make you cringe.

A good chunk of the tourist traffic India has historically attracted comprises of backpackers traveling on a shoestring budget. Low prices and diversity of people, architecture and landscapes is a welcome relief from the more homogenous experience they get in the other vanguards of low-cost travel like South East Asia. Even though India is no longer the dirt-cheap destination it once was, it is still considerably inexpensive by comparison. The low budgets make travellers forgive the hassles they endure viz. dirty hotels, excessive attention, lack of privacy, sexual harassment, extreme poverty etc.

Incredible India ads in the past wisely addressed this demographic. You had the lone intrepid traveller slumming her way on a motorbike, taking sly digs at the Indian head wobble, hitchhiking in the middle of the desert with strangers, interacting with a wide diversity of its people and enjoying a chaotic mishmash of experiences from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. While it too was a fantastical take, there was an attempt to strike a balance between the eccentric and the spectacular. It was telling potential tourists that yes, it’s a messy country, but if you hang around, you could have a truly beautiful time. It, too, addressed the governing themes of the new campaign like yoga, ayurveda etc. but within the larger context of a lived-in experience.

The new ads, it seems, are directed at a different crowd. People who take a couple of weeks off and return to jobs and careers. On the face of it, they appear to be from all economic brackets. The only segment which specifically targets a high-income group is the “Maharani of Manhattan” which peddles the Palace on Wheels and the palaces of Rajasthan in a bizarrely vague manner where neither registers prominently. The activities from the other ads aren’t going to break anybody’s bank but when you look closer, you find the presentation so removed from reality with such an overbearing amount of pampering and handholding, that even someone who doesn’t travel too often will regard the campaign with a degree of suspicion.

Even in 2018, the top priority for most first-time travellers to India, irrespective of income group, is to take a picture of themselves in front of the Taj Mahal. If they have two weeks, they see a bit of Goa, Kerala, Rajasthan and/or Varanasi. The ones with more time and money go tiger watching at a national park, take in an offbeat tour of the Northeast or visit less frequented destinations like Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Or lounge about the backpacker haunts of McLeodganj, Manali, Leh, Gokarna etc. For many tourists/ travellers, the very act of travel is transformative. Mere contact with people in a different country is enriching. Yes, it’s indeed a good idea to wean tourists away from the “greatest hits” sight-seeing tours and show them more meaningful things to do in your country. But if you want your tourists to dig deeper, the advertising needs to ring truer.

Balaji Srinivasan has spent the last decade travelling India and other parts of the world and blogs atTraveholics.com

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